


In Gentle Ways

by Lonewritersclub



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Arkham, Blood and Injury, Caring bat, Fluff, Hurt Joker, Hurt/Comfort, The grin, and times of need, good times to settle your bitterness, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15826710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonewritersclub/pseuds/Lonewritersclub
Summary: Batman needed Joker's help tonight. In the end Batman is nothing but caring sweet-nothings spoken into Joker's ear.





	In Gentle Ways

**In Gentle Ways**

”It’s alright. It’s alright, J.”

Batman holds Joker’s wrists in his hands. His strong bare hands, not gauntlets. They feel rough against Joker’s skin but safe and secure. Warm despite the cold rain.

Joker’s drenched, green hair cascading down into his mascara-run eyes. There’s blood in his mouth from a split mouth. Joker’s lips are trembling. His whole body is shaking.

“It’s alright”, Batman keeps repeating as he loops his arm around him, covering him with his cape to shield him from the cold. To hide him from the mess left behind him.

He helps Joker into the backseat of the cop car and sits down next to him, never leaving his side. The officer is shocked but tries to explain protocol to Batman. But he won’t hear it. He forces his way in with a stern scowl.

Sirens scream in the background as the car pulls off to the station. Backup to collect the dead man. Men.

Joker’s head keeps turning. A slight tremor to it. As if he couldn’t keep it still with his unfocused gaze headed straight through the metal screen and the dirty windshield.

Batman presses a roll of bandage to the corner of his mouth where Joker was knifed. Where the clown of man had played a joke on him.

“It’s okay, you’ll be okay, J”, Batman keeps telling him in spite of the fact that Joker had gutted the clown soon after. Took his tongue, too. With his own knife. Yet here the B-man was. Taking care of him.

They don’t care about his wounds at the station. They just push him through the process. Batman tries to take control of the situation. They let him, to some extent. They admire just as much as they are scared of him. As much as he irritates them. 

Batman recounts the proceedings of the incident all the while trying his best to keep Joker’s mouth together. Despite it being quite a small laceration, even a familiar one, Joker is still losing blood and he is hurting for real.

Batman starts demanding for a doctor with rougher means. Holding an officer by the front of his shirt, yelling with a voice that resembled a growl.

They call for one then but they don't arrive on time. Arkham is going to have to take this one.

So Joker is only hauled in front of the camera again, bloodied fingers gripping the black name plate quietly. He is certainly worse for wear tonight. Something that should have make Batman take a step back – lose interest.

Instead, he kneels in front of Joker, helping him hold up his name plate, a hand laid on his thigh clad in dark purple.

“It’s okay”, he keeps saying. “You’re alright.”

Even though he does all of that, Batman doesn't try to smile at him warmly. He doesn't break his identity. He simply understands him. He knows him. And just the way all of his actions always precede him and his words, Batman cares for him.

Joker doesn't need a smile from him. He only needs his attentive bat-ears on him, listening to him and understanding him. And that’s what he does.

Batman takes Joker back to Arkham personally and personally sees him stitched up and personally sees him scrubbed up and laid into bed. Batman strokes back his sopping wet hair on the pillow. Joker still keeps trembling either from cold or shock so Batman unclasps his cape and wraps it snugly around him, knowing it will help.

“You’re going to be alright”, Batman tells him once again.

Joker grasps the warm black thing in his gauzed up fists and looks up at Batman adoringly. His mouth is sore and bleeding under the white cotton but he smiles at Batman. Batman doesn’t smile back at him and Joker doesn’t need him to. He has listened. Joker will do the smiling for him. That’s what they’ve always done after all.

His rough hands rest on Joker’s chest until he has fallen asleep and he’s not trembling anymore. Only then does he leave, when he has made sure Joker will be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Ever thought about how maybe sometimes the Bat stays with Joker when he has taken him to the station or to Arkham, being there with him through all the proceedings? The thought came to me just now and so this came about right about after.  
> Let me know how you like it! :)


End file.
